Valve stem oil shields are used to attenuate the passage of oil between the stem of a valve and the valve guide of an internal combustion engine. Such oil shields are generally secured to the valve stem by a resilient element so as to reciprocate with the valve. One problem exhibited by such known shields is that prolonged compression of the resilient element plus tolerance stackup may result in compression set of the resilient gripping portion of the oil shield due to the combination of high unit pressure on the resilient element and the high temperature environment in which the valves operate.
A seal faced with the aforesaid problem is taught in Liebig U.S. Pat. No. 3,372,941 entitled "Valve Seal". The mounting configuration of a resilient element on the oil deflector of the valve stem oil shield places the element in compression and does not accommodate tolerance stackup of, for example, an undersized deflector and an oversized valve stem. The resultant high unit pressure on the resilient element leads to compression set thereof and premature failure of the oil shield.